Embodiments of the present disclosure relate generally to sensing environmental conditions and/or products and communicating the sensed information in order to inform users as to conditions that may exist that may affect items in the area and/or to inform a user of products that are present in the area.
Producers, distributors, warehousers, and quality personnel, among others, especially those in charge of perishable, spoilable, or high-value items that are, for example, moving through a logistics supply chain, may desire to know the condition of items for which their operation is accountable. Also, the customer perception of quality may be of value in some industries and, therefore, the monitoring of products through the supply chain may be used to indicate such quality to a customer base.
Further, some entities may be interested in lowering insurance premium costs and the monitoring of products through the supply chain may be one way to reduce such costs. Monitoring the environment of products as they travel is a way of gaining such efficiencies, increasing traceability, and/or of providing for the quality and safety of products which can influence one or more of the above factors, among other benefits.
In addition, producers, distributors, warehousers, and product sellers, among others, may desire to know what products they have in-stock and/or what products they may be running low and/or out of. Currently, such entities may use manual scanning systems and/or inventory systems that may depend on a user scanning information on the products (such as a barcode), to take inventory. However, a user may inaccurately collect the information and the manual scanning can result in increased human resources.
A number of environmental sensing assemblies have been taught, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 7,057,495 “Perishable Product Electronic Label Including Time and Temperature Measurement” and U.S. Pat. No. 7,248,147 “Perishable Product Electronic Label Including Time and Temperature Measurement”, and U.S. Pat. No. 7,675,409 “Environmental Sensing”, all of which are commonly assigned and have at least one common inventor with the present application. Some embodiments of the present disclosure may improve upon these and other devices, systems, and methods for environmental sensing and communication, in some instances.